Electronic Document Management Systems

The purpose of an Electronic Document Management System is to provide a central

repository for documents. An electronic document management system allows for:

• Secure environment for document storage;

• Immediate web based access to documents by authorized personnel from any

location;

• Multiple users can access the same document simultaneously, at anytime;

• Management of versions of documents to minimize inconsistency and redundancy;

• Increased speed of storing, retrieving and modifying documents;

• Reduction of paper, space and staffing requirements associated with paper filing

systems.

An EDMS system offers a means of adding documents to an online repository and

associating properties with those documents to make them easier for users to locate and

retrieve. It also provides a method to check-out and check-in documents so that additional

versions may be created and retained without overwriting previous versions. It facilitates

collaboration by allowing all parties to simultaneously locate and use the most recent version

of an electronic document. Additionally, the system supports a wide variety of document and

data formats.

Users may upload, search, view, check-out and check-in documents according to the user

group to which they belong, or the access rights specifically granted by the individual that

added the document to the EDMS system. Usually access to an EDMS is provided based on

user groups.

Figure 1 shows a schematic of an EDMS system from a user perspective. There are two

basic tasks: adding and retrieving documents. Adding documents involves first creating an

electronic version of the document to be uploaded. In some cases the document may already

exist on the user’s computer. When paper documents need to be entered in an EDMS they

must first be scanned to create electronic copies.

Once the document is created the user goes on line and uploads the document. There are

usually data fields which must be filled in by the user. The filled out data fields provide the

metadata, or indexing tags, that are associated with the specific document being uploaded that

will facilitate retrieval of the document. At the time of upload, the user also assigns which

user groups have what kind of access (e.g.: rights to view the document, rights to add a new

version, etc) to the document. At this stage, naming the document correctly using the correct

naming convention is critical so that the document will be easy to retrieve after it is uploaded.

Without search engines, naming conventions and other metadata, documents can get lost

in the system. Also, the user’s ability to determine that they have the latest version is limited.

The user begins the retrieval process by logging into the EDMS and either searching by

entering information in the appropriate property criteria and executing the search, or browsing

through the repository. If the user has the right to view the document or its properties, the

document will appear in the search results or during browsing.

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